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Time goes quickly. So this is late from the event, but that doesn’t really change the content. I went to see Laurence Green talk a few weeks back… and there were a few things that he said which I noted down…

“There’s a culture of interrogating brands on the internet”

His point being that brands can only influence the conversation nowadays – whereas previously you could control the conversation and ‘broadcast’ messages to people. There’s no control left so brands have to prompt conversation.

It feeds into the general discussion today that “brands should do rather than just say” that I also like – Haagen-Dazs doing “save the honey bees” is a great example of this, I think. And that does far more to make me believe in their natural ingredients than all the ads telling me the same thing. Look at Pedigree, too – a TBWA\ global brand that believes “We’re for dogs” – and the activity they do every year to support Dog Adoption. Again, an example of a brand that lives up to values that we can relate to, rather than simply banging on about why you should buy.

But Laurence’s comments on ‘interrogation’ give a great framework for this discussion – when the world’s watching and discussing and merrily exposing any vacuous claims, brands should be talking about what they do, rather than just talking about reasons for purchase…

This is the time for brands to behave with integrity and compassion – involve people, instead of trying to ‘persuade’ them.

“Fallon has a healthy disrespect for what advertising can do alone”

He talked about how they look for ideas that can live beyond TV – that engender conversation. Gorilla et al being prime examples, although he used others in the talk he gave. Again, a simple way of expressing the thought and a potent motto for us all to live by…

As an aside, if you haven’t read it already, then get the CP+B book “Hoopla” – they’re probably the world masters of this. And they also approach planning from the perspective of cultural change – feeding into the last point I noted down…

“We’re looking for content that can live with culture rather than spread messages”

Interesting to hear him state it as an intent. And a truism – if you’re trying to positively influence culture or add to cultural content, then it requires you to produce something more valuable than the majority of ads that clutter our landscape!

Think how Balls got talked about – how Gorilla was a topic of conversation amongst people who DON’T work in advertising. Think how Haagen-Dazs are building support for bees – how Pedigree are helping save homeless dogs… what does your brand believe in? What are you doing?

This one’s getting very mixed reactions – and some criticism for using the language of AA along the way. Ignoring that, it’s an impressive piece of film… worth a watch (although I still like the original Keitel one more – as below)…

Is it wrong to love this? I know it’s YouTube entertainment brought to TV – but isn’t that the entire point? Bring entertainment to television and broadcast it to a bigger audience… (Then dozens of people upload it onto YouTube to boost that audience!)

I’ll admit that I watched it 4 times in a row – and you can’t say that for most ads you see on TV – many of them would drive you crazy if you gave them 4 repeat viewings… So, for me it definitely does the entertainment. It made me smile. I sent it to people. I dragged my wife in to watch it. I talked to colleagues to see what they thought. All stuff we’d be cagging to make happen if we were writing communications. So, congratulations again to Fallon.

The “message” is still non-existent, which was the whole debate in the first place, but maybe this proves you don’t really need it. When the Cadbury brand can genuinely say that it believes in ‘spreading joy’ and that’s something that we can all relate to – a lot more than a specific selling message. maybe? Thank goodness this one is good after “Trucks!”

Roni Brunn sent me this link – it’s a plug for her band really, but there’s also a lot of fun to be had spotting the ads she’s mashed up on this video (41 in total, if you want to guess all of them!). If you want to check her music and her blog out, then you can go here…

Watch this in high quality, rather than normal res… even if it takes a while to load – it’s worth it.

It’s a new ad for T-Mobile, but it’s so much more than that – it’s beautiful, epic, feel-good advertising just when we need it!

Richard used the phrase “I think the phrase ‘we’re back’ may be in order.” and I think he’s right – this is damn fine work…

See the full story at their YouTube Channel. Smartly, they’re building content on a site that people use, rather than littering the web with another ‘landing site’ that gets too little attention. But that’s a separate point/debate.

Ed Cotton, over at Influx Insights, asked the question of some people as to what their predictions are for this year.

And, I’m not going to answer it in the usual way… after all, enough people will predict the demise of advertising budgets in the face of a recessionary economy around the globe. And the uplift for “digital” will also be widely discussed – against a backdrop of the last recession being the boom of DM. The potential demise of a once-famous name in the more traditional advertising landscape has been vaunted, and could be a sad truth. And people will speculate on the next merger/acquisition in search advertising… in fact, you can read almost all of that right here at “The Big List of 2009 Marketing Predictions” – albeit an ambitious name and clearly lacking in some of the big names like Ad Age, Campaign, etc… Even The Economist has weighed in this year with a fantastically doom-laden prophesy for our industry – worthwhile reading as part of their “The World in 2009” edition.

So, here’s my thought on 2009… Which is a positive one…

What if we used the realities to change the way we work?
What if we stop being people who go to meetings and become people who deliver more ‘visible value’?

Today, far too many of us planners spend our time going to meetings – because being ‘present’ is the easiest sign of value for a client and agency. If you’re at the meetings, then people know you’re involved and they feel ‘value’ from your presence, your commentary, your input.

There’s nothing wrong with that per se, but in many cases it’s either hiding or preventing us from doing real thinking – making a difference on the results. Because, real planning also involves spending time immersing ourselves in issues – learning all about the behaviours of our audience; finding out what the real connection is with the product/brand we’re marketing; delving into the connections that people have with competitor brands; and so on. Then packaging that information into formats for our clients and our creatives… in ways that inspire.

In other words, the more time you spend in meetings, the less time you spend finding inspirational thoughts!

Ask yourself this:
“What are your success stories from last year?”
“What have you really done?”

Because, if you’ve been ‘present’ and you’ve helped to drive things along, is that really enough?
When, truly, you should be able to point at pieces of thinking, acts of discovery and strategies that you’ve developed which markedly forced change. Your input should result in ‘visible value’ (apologies for the alliterative term!).

Become the person that says “I did XXXXX” rather than “I was there.”

And, finally, the reason for this being a 2009 opportunity rather than something we should always do?
Well, this year we’ll have less people doing more work. So, carrying on as normal will be really difficult. Going to more meetings will be less exciting. And explaining to your clients that you’re going to spend more time producing rather than discussing should be all the more interesting for them.

So, use this year to change the way you work, rather than getting wrapped up in the debate about budgets shrinking… it’ll be a lot more fun.

I love the new Virgin ad, although I don’t know if they need the “Still red hot” end line… And the fact that it reminds me of “Catch me if you can” is a great thing, not a case of “faint praise!” Enjoy…

Not that long ago, I was asked to pick 3 interesting ads for a meeting and thought I’d go back in time somewhat to find some classics that used to be much talked-about, but could possibly be fresh to people nowadays… and these 3 gems were the result of a quick search through an old UMat… always a joy to watch something forgotten but great…